We added a very simple new feature to TestMe Font. Referring to this research, we added the possibility for users to change word spacing (this is an addition to the extra wide letter spacing we adopted in TestMe).
You can choice now between four different word spaces.

Dyslexia is a Learning Disability with various levels of complexity and types, and this means different needs for each reader.

This is why we chose to design the “TestMe” font family (as you may read here) and to make an online platform that helps to analyze several factors to find better conditions for reading. On the website www.testmefont.com (currently in beta 1.1) you can combine different versions of the font and change some parameters, as spacing between letters and between words, in order to get the best result for you. Every test will help designers and researchers to understand the importance of single factors and to define the future steps of the font development.

The platform is a work-in-progress as the font itself, and it will be improved and extended thanks to the feedback of every user.

Besides the platform on www.testmefont.com, we opened a Facebook page to spread the project, to carry on the debate over this topic, and to keep users constantly updated about the improvements.

Studying the relationship between fonts and reading performance, including the case of Learning Disabilities, we have identified the need for a font that would allow to check some of the typographical features relevant to the reading process.
Luciano Perondi therefore has reworked Titilium, and released a font with Open Font license. We called the result TestMe.
The font TestMe is available in 4 versions based on the same parameters except serifs and differentiation of forms: – TestMe Sans (sans-serif), wide spacing, long ascenders and descenders; – TestMe Sans Alternate, with serifs only on a few letters and forms more clearly differentiated; – TestMe Serif, with serifs on all the letters (still incomplete, missing diacritics and marks); (- TestMe Serif Alternate, forthcoming).
You can download TestMe for free at this link (Open Font License is included): https://github.com/molotro/TestMe02 You can use and modify the font according to the license.
We decided to release it as a “Libre” font because we think that it’s useless to give a single solution to a specific problem. If you have any suggestion or specific needs, please write us, we’ll be glad to have advices to expand the font or your personal customizations.
The practice of Design for All “requires the involvement of end users at every stage in the design process”. For this reason the font is released as a draft, it will be updated little by little with your help, use it with care.

The interfaces of what are usually referred to as “construction and management games” [games in which planning and logistic challenges are emphasized, the player’s goal is to build or manage something with limited resources in an ongoing process] (but also strategic ones) are interesting examples of synsemic texts and, above all, they show a concrete application of the idea of analogy.

We publish a further illustration of the idea of synsemia we published in italian in “Nova24” of “Il Sole 24 Ore” last October. This “definition” was written by us after long discussions with Antonio Perri and Giovanni Lussu.

[Synsemia] “[…] is defined as deliberately and consciously placing elements of written language in space, in order to communicate, through space articulation, regularly and in a reasonably unambiguous way. These regularities may only be valid for a specific case, but they must be consistent, rigorous and interpretable without requiring support from the author. They may equally be defined by precise patterns and established habits of assimilation.”

“The term synsemia is comprised of the prefix syn, which comes from Greek (‘with’, ‘together’, used contemporaneously also in the sense of ‘union’), and the noun semía, which comes from ‘sema’, or ‘sign’). Synsemia indicates the means in which signs are found together (in space). The term was coined in 2007 by Giovanni Lussu and Antonio Perri and forms part of critical view that is counterpoint to a lineal and alphabet-centric vision of written language”.

“In this context, the spatial arrangement has a value that is not only instructive but also heuristic: it enables discovery, allows tests to be developed and, therefore, plays a leading role in deductive processes”.

We thank Francesco Franchi (art director for IL – Intelligence in lifestyle of Il Sole 24 Ore) for the translation of the definition we gave in the article “Letture da recuperare” published in “Nova24” of “Il Sole 24 Ore” n. 245 and on “La vita nòva”, iPad App of “Il Sole 24 Ore” (n. 2, v 1.1, April 2011).

We publish a kind of graphical abstract of the Divina Commedia designed by Luciano Perondi and Angelo Monne. The design process was based on a simple synsemic model and the result is a clear (we guess) visual syntax.

Some time ago Giovanni Lussu pointed out an article to me: “pages 47-66 [ Typographica 12], entitled Emphatic fist, informative arrow, with a short text by Edward Wright commenting some pictures by Herbert Spencer of fists (…) and arrows (…).
The article ends this way: “The sign on the highways is really not an arrow at all; it is a diagram which can change direction and be read from a distance at windscreen level. We can call them arrows because ‘arrow’ now means a certain kind of sign”.

1. There are several pointer of sense AND direction (such as fists or aztec footprints (meaning also “movement” or showing a sequence) or even medieval phylakterion);
2. and arrow is used not only to point a “sense” but also to show a sort of hierarchy in the synsemic text (for exemple, on one side of the arrow there is the main text on the other the “explanation”, or the “note”) or simply to “point out” something in the text.

Acupuncture chart from the Ming Dynasty. The "pointer" is used to create a hierarchy between the main text and the explanations.

Some very short notes about the history of the arrow as a graphic sign (there are four previous posts on this topic in italian: 1, 2, 3, 4).
The discussion started from the article “Mapping symbols to response modalities: Interference effects on Stroop-like tasks”(pdf) presenting a Stroop-like experiment on the interference between a word and an “arrow”.
In a few words, from the abstract: “The subjects were required to respond to one stimulus — an arrow (e.g., →) or a word (e.g., left) — and ignore the other”.

The most important result of the experiment, in brief, is that when the subjects have to act (pressing a key), arrow is stronger than letters, while when the subject have to vocalize the arrow is weaker than letters.

«The index finger as part of an entire hand is seen often, especially in early works (through the Renaissance and into the Baroque) but I must say that I’ve not seen the arrow sign used in its place early, even in the 19th century. When looking at annotated works in the 19th century and earlier it’s mostly lines or dots or dashes and even the drawn finger/hand, but not arrows. Good question! I don’t have an answer, but I suspect that the use of the arrow is very (100-150 years?) recent».

The image above is a graphic artifact I designed to explain the concept of an architectural project: a wine-cellar in Argentina.

In order to communicate an idea through white bi-dimensional space you must think first about the space of the text, choosing which part of the concept will be the main and which will be subordinate, what has to be communicated first and what is just secondary.

Then you must plan how to design the page and the relation between images and text.
Sometimes the text explains the images, otherwise text and images are strongly related and they would lose their meaning if they are separated, or the images are created to explain the text.

Today on Il Sole 24 Ore, an important italian newspaper, Luciano Perondi presents his new typeface “Sole Serif”, that will be adopted, starting tomorrow, in the weekly cultural supplement. So a few words on type design and the synsemic perspective.

Aren’t they in opposition? If synsemia is the study of the non linear organization of elements of writing, type design shouldn’t be its opposite? Actually alphanumeric characters are elements of writing which needs to be organized in the space.

Synsemia is more usual than we can think, unfortunately.
We can read vertical and horizontal alignments to understand (to infer) relations between elements. And we can get the hierarchy of text elements from size.Synsemic analysis in pdf

This is a page from “Letters of Euler to a German Princess, on Different Subjects in Physics and Philosophy”, written by Leonhard Euler.
Which part is the illustration, and which is the main text? As you can see the demonstration of Eulero is strongly based on the succession of graphics elements.
In the first printed version (in french) it is possible to see how deeper was the relation between alphabetic text and diagrammatic text. It could be interesting to see which was the relation between elements in the original manuscript.